Tuesday, September 06, 2005

"Suntanned and relaxed after a vacation so long that it would have shamed a French playboy, Bush reacted with fogged delinquency, as if he had been so lulled by his summer sojourn that he was not quite ready to acknowledge reality, let alone attempt to master it," pens New Yorker Editor David Remnick in Sept. 12 editions of the magazine.The New Yorker editor's piece is as unflinching and scathing as any written about the crisis, saying Bush "failed in every respect," and declaring the mismanagement of post-Katrina chaos mirrored the Bush Administration's work in Iraq, where Remnick sees: "the cavalier posture, the wretched decisions, [and] the self-delusions."Remnick, who was named editor of the magazine in 1998, had previously worked as a Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post and recently wrote an eloquent portrait of politically vanquished former Vice President Al Gore. Selected excerpts follow.